Justine Charlet de Sauvage wins the phenology competition 2021

Justine Charlet de Sauvage wins the Phenology Contest 2021with her project “Temperature rather than individual growing period length determines radial growth of sessile oak in the Pyrenees ". During her master thesis, Justine Charlet de Sauvage analysed tree rings from cores sampled in different populations of oaks at various elevations in the Pyrenees. The particularity of this work was to determine the influence of an early or late spring and autumn phenology on radial growth of the trees.

Radial growth was positively correlated with temperature for populations at high elevations, but negatively for populations at low elevations (i.e., the growth of oaks at low elevations was reduced during warmer periods). Furthermore, no link was found between growing period length and radial growth. Her work suggests that within an oak population, the growing period length is not a key driver of tree productivity.